


don't take that sinner from me

by extasiswings



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Domestic Fluff, F/M, First Kiss, First Meetings, First Time, Fluff, Love Confessions, Smut, Timeless Season 2, Timeless Season 3 Project, prompt fills
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:08:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 17,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23098345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/pseuds/extasiswings
Summary: A series of prompt fills originally posted elsewhere.  Lucy/Flynn-centric.  See individual chapters for summaries and ratings.
Relationships: Garcia Flynn/Lucy Preston
Comments: 30
Kudos: 63





	1. I.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T. Prompt: “My soul has been so fearful, so violent: forgive its brutality.”

The first time is rough, all biting nails and sharp teeth and hands gripping tight enough to bruise. It’s not about love, not even about pleasure, just a need to feel alive. A need for a reminder that the numbness that freezes her all too often can still be shifted. 

Lucy doesn’t let Flynn hold her after. Instead, she slips away while he’s still catching his breath, before he can compose himself enough to give voice to the gentleness in his eyes when he looks at her. She locks the bathroom door and lets the shower fill the room with steam as she leans against the wall and catalogues all the marks on her skin with a shiver. 

And then it happens again. And again. It keeps happening, until she can no longer claim that it’s an accident. But there are rules. Not ones they talk about, of course. But rules nonetheless. 

Until there aren’t. Until Wyatt gets grazed by a bullet that’s too close for anyone’s comfort and Rufus and Jiya get in a fight and Flynn—

—Flynn grabs Lucy’s hands as she claws at his shirt behind closed doors, stilling them gently.

“Wait.”

Lucy leans up on her toes and catches his mouth with hers anyway, nipping at his lip when he pulls away. 

“Lucy.” He squeezes her hands once and brings them to his lips. “Are you okay?”

She nearly flinches. It’s too gentle. Too earnest. 

It’s not what they do. Those aren’t the rules. And she can’t—

“Garcia, please,” she says. “Can’t we just—”

“Lucy.”

Flynn’s eyes are steady as he gazes at her, soft and concerned and all too knowing. Her throat closes up and she pulls her hands away, feeling suddenly exposed.

“I don’t—I can’t—” Words fail and her eyes burn and he’s still watching her and when was the last time she—

—she can’t remember how to accept softness anymore. She doesn’t understand how he can want to give it. 

“I’m sorry,” Lucy forces out, stepping away. “I have to go.”

“Lucy…”

“I’m sorry.” She runs.

She can’t.


	2. II. Holiday Prompt 1: Midnight Mass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G. Holiday Prompt: "X goes to christmas eve mass out of familial obligation; you my friend look equally miserable."

The incense wafts thick through the air, and candles flicker all around. The church is decorated with poinsettias and evergreen, white and gold cloth draping the altar and hung across the back of the large crucifix by the chapel. The organ echoes as the choir sings, all the melodies familiar enough.

It’s beautiful. 

And Lucy positively hates all of it.

Maybe if she had Amy with her things would be different—midnight mass was their thing with their father after all, and it had been Amy’s idea that they go together this year when he died in July—but Amy is stuck in Chicago, her flight cancelled due to snow, so it’s only Lucy. Lucy, who is suffocating in the middle of a crowd of devout Catholics. Lucy, who isn’t exactly feeling the spirit of the season.

She makes it through the Gloria before she excuses herself, murmuring apologies to the other churchgoers in her pew as she squeezes past. When she hits the entrance, she stops just outside the door, letting the cool winter air wash over her. Really, there’s no reason she shouldn’t keep walking until she hits the parking lot, but she can’t quite make herself leave completely.

As Lucy stands there, trying to talk herself into going back inside, the other door opens and a man steps out, stopping opposite her on the steps. He doesn’t appear to have noticed her—tension hangs in every line of him as he reaches up and swipes a hand over his face, then rakes it through his hair. Like her, he doesn’t seem to know whether or not to leave.

“You okay?” Lucy asks before she can stop herself.

The man starts, his head whipping around to stare at her. It’s clear he thought he was alone with whatever crisis had driven him outside.

“I’m—” His voice is rough. He looks down as he clears his throat.

“I’m fine,” he finishes after a pause. It seems like a pretty blatant lie from where Lucy’s standing, but then, she’s not in a position to judge. “I just need a minute.”

“Yeah,” Lucy sighs. “I get that.”

They lapse into silence. If she listens carefully, Lucy can just catch the sound of the cantor beginning the psalm through the door. She should go back in. She doesn’t.

“You know, I almost didn’t come tonight,” she says when the silence becomes too unbearable. The man doesn’t reply, but cuts his eyes across to her curiously so she continues. “I can’t decide what’s worse in terms of being on good terms with God—not showing up or ditching a quarter of the way through the service.”

The man snorts quietly. “God and I are on pretty contentious terms as it is, so frankly I doubt it matters.”

“Been awhile?” Lucy asks.

He hesitates, measuring a response, then says, “I always went to church with my wife. She and our daughter were killed nearly a year ago. I haven’t set foot in one since the funeral.”

“Why the change of heart tonight?”

“Lorena loved midnight mass,” he replies. “It was her favorite service every year. So I thought, maybe—but it’s all so—”

“My dad was the same way,” Lucy says when he breaks off. “He—lung cancer. A few months ago. And I figured I didn’t exactly have other plans tonight, even after my sister couldn’t make it, but—”

“But,” he echoes, tone resigned and mouth twisting in solidarity. And silence falls again.

Inside, they’re onto the homily. Probably something about peace or love or faith if Lucy had to guess. She thinks again about going back inside, but opening the door seems like a Herculean task.

Instead, what slips out of her mouth is: “Do you want to get out of here?”

The man blinks, startled again. “What?”

Lucy shrugs. “We both already walked out once, seems to me there’s no reason to force something that clearly doesn’t want to happen. About ten minutes down the road there’s a diner that I used to go to during grad school whenever I was having a crisis of confidence—the owner doesn’t have any family so she keeps it open, even on Christmas, for whoever needs…somewhere to go.”

He looks back at the church door, then over at her, his eyes shadowed but thoughtful.

“I don’t even know your name,” he says slowly.

“Lucy Preston,” she replies, holding out her hand. “I teach in the history department at Stanford.”

Haltingly, as though he’s forgotten somewhat how to touch another person, he takes the offered hand.

“Garcia Flynn,” he admits. “I run a private security business.”

“Well, Garcia Flynn…now that you know my name, I’ll ask again. Do you want to get out of here?”

His hand is warm in hers, big and calloused, and the touch lingers far beyond a normal handshake when neither of them let go. His eyes search hers for a long moment, and something sparks in her chest—interest or possibility or just the recognition of a kindred spirit. Finally though, he does step back and release her hand. Lucy misses it instantly.

“Okay.”

(The next year, they go to midnight mass together. And they stay until the end.)


	3. III. Holiday Prompt 2: Gift Giving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G. Prompt: “2. you agreed to help me with christmas shopping bc i’m truly hopeless and as we’re going through and you’re picking our perfect gifts for my parents, boss, kid sister, literally everyone wait how do you actually know me this well”

The thing is, it’s not that Lucy hates shopping for Christmas gifts. It’s just that she’s usually terrible at it when left to her own devices. Give her a list and sure, she’ll manage fine, but ask her to come up with ideas on her own?

(There’s a reason she’s had years where everyone she knows got a scarf, okay?)

Flynn, though. Flynn is amazing at gift-giving. He’s the kind of person who remembers that random thing you mentioned once months ago, even after you’ve forgotten all about it. A good thing, then, that she has his expertise at her disposal.

(This year, though, at least between them, she has him beat.)

It’s three years since the end of Rittenhouse. Since they all walked away from time travel and war and had to figure out how to live again. 

Some days, Lucy isn’t sure she’s completely managed that, but she’s trying.

Three years. Three years since Flynn moved in with her. Two since she kissed him for the first time. One since he asked her to marry him.

All of those things had happened on Christmas too.

But the gifts—he’s always been better than her at the gifts. Not this year.

“Merry Christmas,” Lucy says as the clock strikes midnight on Christmas Eve. She barely shifts from where she’s curled up in his arms on the couch. In the fireplace, the flames sputter lower, a sign that they should probably muster the energy to rise and retreat to their actual bedroom instead of dozing downstairs. But there’s one thing she wants to do first. 

“What’s this?” Flynn asks when she reaches across him for the envelope on the coffee table and passes it to him.

“Christmas present.”

“I thought we weren’t doing gifts until later with everyone.”

Lucy shrugs, a smile flickering at the edges of her mouth.

“I thought this one might be nice to keep between us for awhile,” she replies.

Flynn raises a brow, but opens the envelope anyway. Lucy holds her breath as he goes utterly still beneath her, as he stares at the picture in his hand before his eyes snap to hers, searching.

“You’re not…”

Lucy bites back a wider smile.

“I am.”

He kisses her then, achingly soft as his fingers skim down her spine.

“When—how long—?” He asks when he pulls back.

“I’m at ten weeks,” she replies. “I hear you shouldn’t tell people until twelve, but I didn’t think that included you.”

Flynn laughs once, breathless and awed, and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear.

“I love you.”

“I know.”

It’s Lucy’s turn to lean in then, kissing him one last time as she takes the ultrasound photo and sits up. Flynn stops her before she can stand, swallowing hard.

“Lucy…I—thank you.”

Lucy reaches up and strokes his cheek.

“I seem to recall you doing at least some of the work,” she teases lightly.

He laughs again, soft and shy, and then goes right back to staring at her like she’s some kind of miracle.

“Still.”

She brings his hand to her lips for a brief moment, then stands and tugs him up along with her.

“Like I said. Merry Christmas.”


	4. IV. Holiday Prompt 3: Dear Santa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G. Prompt: Garcy + someone answered my daughter’s ‘dear santa’ letter and it’s actually super sweet how kind they’re being.
> 
> (For an AU in which Lorena died but Iris survived. No time travel.)

“What did you do at school today, sweetheart?”

“We wrote letters to Santa!”

Garcia Flynn manages a small smile as he glances in the rearview mirror at his daughter in the backseat. Her smile isn’t small at all—it’s wide and bright as she wriggles in her seat, purple backpack tossed next to her. He can’t recall the last time he smiled that widely, but he’s glad she can manage it.

“What did you ask Santa for?”

Iris makes a face.

“Tata,” she scolds, in the imperious way only an almost-seven-year-old can have. “I can’t tell you that. Otherwise it won’t happen!”

“That must be a new rule. I don’t remember that one.”

“Tata.”

Flynn raises one hand in surrender, keeping the other on the steering wheel as he pulls out of the school parking lot.

“Okay, okay,” he replies. “I won’t push. What else?”

Iris races off into a story about what Melissa got up to during recess and how Miss Preston gave her a sticker when she finished her book early during reading time, and, and, and—

So, Flynn forgets about Santa and secrets and letters. That is, until one turns up in their mailbox.

He doesn’t read it at first. The return address is from the school and it claims to be to Iris from Santa and it was a school assignment. There doesn’t seem to be any harm in just giving it to her. He doesn’t think much of it at all to be perfectly honest.

Until, of course, Iris comes barreling into the kitchen and slams into him with a hug that nearly knocks him off balance.

“Hey…” His hand falls to the top of her head, stroking her hair. “What’s all this?”

Iris shakes her head and squeezes his legs tighter for a minute before finally letting go. She doesn’t look upset, there are no tears, but her face is solemn in a way that seems beyond her years.

“I love you, Tata,” she says with a shrug. “That’s all. And…I miss mama, too.”

Flynn’s breath catches as he freezes, but Iris runs off again before he can recover enough to respond. But in her wake, fluttering to the floor, is the letter.

So he picks it up.

_Dear Iris,_

_Thank you for your letter. I also lost my mother recently—yes, even Santa had a mother—and I know how difficult that can be. I can’t tell you how much I wish I could give you what you asked and help your father be happy again. But loss is hard, emotions are hard, and there is no easy fix. Some things are beyond even my abilities. What I will say is that I can tell you’re a very smart girl and that you love your father very much. So the advice I can give is that you should tell him that. As much as you can. The rest will come in time._

_Love,_

_Santa._

Flynn sets the letter down and swipes at his eyes. Then he goes to hug his daughter again.

The thing is, he’s not sure what he’s supposed to do about it—or if there is anything to do at all. But the school puts on a winter art showcase before winter break starts, and since he has the chance to mention it—well.

“Miss Preston?”

“Amy, please,” the young teacher insists. “Iris is one of my favorite students, the least I can do is be on a first name basis with her dad.”

Flynn rubs at the back of his neck and nods.

“Amy, then,” he allows. “I just wanted to say—the Santa letter—Iris and I have been talking a lot more about things since you sent it and I wanted to thank you. It’s—surprisingly, it’s helped a lot.”

Amy blinks. “I would love to take credit, but I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Flynn’s brow furrows.

“Someone wrote a response to the Santa letter Iris wrote in class a few weeks ago. I thought—”

There’s a noise from behind him, the clattering of a plate on the ground, and Flynn sees a flash of comprehension over Amy’s face before she smirks and gestures. Behind him, a blushing woman is picking the plate back up.

“Mr. Flynn, this is my sister. Dr. Lucy Preston. She teaches at Stanford. We also live together and she sees the work I bring home sometimes. Lucy, this is Garcia Flynn.”

The puzzle pieces click into place as he extends his hand on instinct.

“Dr. Preston.”

“Mr. Flynn.” Her cheeks are still red. “I’m so sorry, I know it was none of my business and entirely overstepping, but—”

“It was perfect,” he interrupts. “It was…perfect.”

“Tata!” Iris shouts, escaping the other chaperones to run over. “Did you see my picture?”

“I was just about to go look,” Flynn assures her.

Before he can question the instinct, he looks back at Lucy.

“Would you like to join us, Dr. Preston?”

“Yes, she would,” Amy says, taking the plate from Lucy’s hands and nudging her forward.

Lucy hisses something at her sister that Flynn doesn’t quite catch, but Amy just smiles and turns on her heel, leaving them alone.

“You don’t mind?” Lucy asks.

“At the moment, you know a lot more about me than I know about you,” Flynn replies. “I wouldn’t mind leveling out the field.”

She tucks her hair behind her ears as Iris tugs his hand.

“Okay then,” she says. “Lead the way.”


	5. V. Gettysburg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T. Prompt: “Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.” for Garcy

She tells Flynn not to go. Begs him, really. In a barn ten miles away from the site of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, on the night before it’s meant to begin. 

It’s nonsensical. Selfish. Utterly ridiculous. One man’s life is not worth more than the fate of the history of the United States. 

(Except for the fact that in that moment, watching him saddle a horse, her throat closing up with icy panic, Lucy can’t help feeling that for her, it just might be.)

“I love you,” Flynn says as he gently pries her fingers from his shirt. He kisses her knuckles, then leans in and steals a kiss from her lips. 

“Come back,” she commands. A small smile flickers across his mouth.

“I’ll do my best.”

Then, he’s gone. And Lucy waits.

Flynn doesn’t come back. Not the first day. Not the second. Even miles away, the artillery blasts on the third day make her flinch. 

He doesn’t come back that day either. But the battle ends just as history dictates it should.

“Lucy,” Wyatt starts sometime through the fourth day. He had found his way back the night before. “We can’t stay here. We should–”

“We’re not leaving,” she interrupts, already shaking her head. “He’ll be back. You’ll see.”

“We can’t–Lucy, he could be–”

“No!” 

_Over fifty thousand casualties_ , her mind whispers unhelpfully. 

Wyatt sighs and rakes a hand through his hair before saying something she doesn’t catch.

“What?”

“I said, he made me promise,” he replies. “Before we got separated. He made me promise I’d get you home.”

Lucy swallows hard. “That’s not his decision to make. And when he comes back, I’ll tell him so myself.”

“Yeah. I thought you might say something like that.” And with that, Wyatt pushes off the wall of the barn and goes to tell Rufus.

They find Flynn in a field hospital on the sixth day, his arm and one leg wrapped in bloody bandages, his eyes glassy from pain and fever. But there’s recognition in his face when Lucy grips his hand near tight enough to crush it.

“Knew you’d find me,” he murmurs through cracked, dry lips. 

If she pretends hard enough, she can tell herself the sound that escapes her is a laugh rather than a sob. 

“Yeah, well, I’m going to kill you myself when we get home,” Lucy replies. “What happened to coming back to me?”

“Minor detour.” Flynn grunts quietly as he sits up, eyes closing briefly to steady himself. 

“Forgive me?” He asks when they open again.

Lucy presses her forehead to his and exhales shakily. _Yes. I love you. Yes._

“Ask me again when we’re home.”


	6. VI. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T. Prompt: “I love you as certain dark things are to be loved.”

“Come home with me.”

Lucy Preston whispers it against Garcia Flynn’s chest as she ostensibly hugs him goodbye, a packed duffel bag waiting by his feet to be carted off to parts unknown. She doesn’t mean to say it—they have all spent so long trapped together, no space, no privacy, and if he wants to go away and find some peace and quiet now that Rittenhouse is gone, he is entitled.

Besides which, they are…they are…Lucy doesn’t know what they are. It feels dangerous to name it.

But. Flynn makes a small sound, startled and questioning, and pulls away from the embrace so he can see her face. He doesn’t speak. Instead, he watches her with haunted, shadowed, exhausted eyes, as if hope is a luxury he has forbidden himself, and Lucy squirms under the scrutiny and wets her lips.

“Come home with me,” she repeats, hating the way her voice shakes, hating how much her stomach twists in the silence that follows, insecurity whispering cruelly in the back of her mind that he won’t, that he could never want to, that she’s a foolish little—

“Okay.”

_Oh._

It’s that easy.

* * *

Flynn moves into the spare room. First in Carol’s house, and then, after the itch under Lucy’s skin becomes too much, after the walls feel like they’re closing in around her, into the house Connor buys for them.

At first, Lucy wonders if she misunderstood. If maybe he doesn’t—if he only moved in with her at all out of some sense of obligation. But as time goes on, as they sink into routine…

There’s something fragile in it. In the way he cooks and cleans and doesn’t touch her, but looks at her with quiet worship when he doesn’t think she can see. And she realizes that he’s afraid.

If she’s honest, so is she.

They spent so long fighting, the shadow of loss hanging over them like a cloud, never sure what was going to be ripped away from them next. This—normal life—it feels like a fantasy. A dream. Pushing their intimacies into something more would be tempting fate, waving a sign for the universe to come take it away.

(Their scars are perhaps still too fresh for that anyway.)

But sometimes…sometimes Lucy wants him so badly she can’t breathe.

* * *

She’s not sure what wakes her at first. The clock tells her it’s just after 3AM, but she can hear movement from downstairs, and the faintest strains of music.

Six months. Six months of living together, of limbo, of dancing around the elephant in the room.

Lucy slips out of bed.

Flynn slides something into the oven as she appears in the doorway—a quiche, she thinks, from the look of it. Sweet strings filter out of the speakers, soothing and repetitive minimalism. She places it as Philip Glass, but the name of the quartet escapes her.

“Can’t sleep?” She asks. Flynn doesn’t jump, just gently closes the oven door and straightens up.

There’s a smear of flour on his cheek.

She wants to wipe it away. She wonders if he would let her.

He shakes his head. “Not tonight.”

Lucy steps into the kitchen, crossing closer as the movement changes over on the recording.

“Can I help?”

“I’m alright now. But thank you.”

She stops in front of him and chances taking his hand, not letting go even when he shivers and closes his eyes.

“You always take care of me,” Flynn says quietly as her fingers lace through his.

“No more than you take care of me,” Lucy replies.

“Still—“

“It’s what you do.” It slips out before she can stop herself, and Flynn squeezes her hand in return. The strings coalesce into something beautiful and rippling—it steals into her chest and cracks something open.

“It’s what you do…when you love someone,” she finishes.

He doesn’t say anything with words, but he grips her hand even more tightly and bends to press his forehead to hers.

“How long does that need?”

“Forty minutes,” Flynn replies. “I’ll check it in thirty.”

Lucy nods once and swallows.

“Will you—will you come to bed when you’re finished?”

“To your bed?”

“Ours,” she corrects gently. “If—if you want.”

The brush of his mouth across her knuckles is feather-light.

“Yes,” he agrees. “Yes.”


	7. VII. São Paulo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T. Prompt: "And I said to the star, 'Consume me.'"

She comes to him in darkness.

Oh, the city outside is bright enough, millions of people packed within its limits, vibrant and thriving. The light pollution dims the stars.

But the bar is dark and smoky. Maybe one in every three light bulbs is still functional, and patrons slip through the haze like ghosts, every one of them trying to escape something.

Garcia Flynn is not the first foreigner to pass through its doors and try to drink himself numb on one of the dingy bar stools, and he won’t be the last. But he always pays and tips well besides and the bartenders leave him to his own shadows when it becomes clear the only thing he wants is privacy.

Above the bar, another bulb flickers and fizzles out, plunging his silent corner into ever more darkness.

And that is the moment Lucy Preston walks in.

Flynn notices her instantly—not because he’s looking, not because he cares, but because she doesn’t belong. Her clothes are clean and too nice for the area, her hair gleams, and she is…luminous. As if it is irrelevant how many lightbulbs burn out because she is her own light source, the burning heart of her spreading its glow outward.

Christ, he must be more drunk than he thought.

He turns away and finishes his third drink of the night, beginning the debate of whether to have another when a body slides onto the stool next to him.

“Garcia.”

Flynn freezes.

She’s beautiful—that’s an objective assessment, the way a viewer might acknowledge a painting in a museum that they have little interest in, casual and removed.

“How do you know my name?”

“I know everything about you.”

He considers that, considers her with as calculating an eye as he can manage when his head is cloudier than usual. She’s somehow brighter up close. Maybe it’s just a trick of the light.

“Are you here to kill me?” He asks.

She makes a sound like he’s struck her.

“No,” she says. “No, I—Garcia, my name is Lucy Preston and I’m here because—because I’m actually trying to save you.”

His grandmother believed people had auras. She said you could see them when you were meant to, could tell if someone was good or bad depending on whether they shone. Flynn never put much stock in that. But. Lucy shines.

Still, Flynn snorts and signals for another drink.

“No offense, Ms. Preston,” he says. “But I’d prefer it if you were here to kill me.”

What’s left to save, anyway?

She flinches, then steels herself.

“Well, that’s not going to happen so I suppose you’ll just have to listen to me instead.”

“And why should I?”

“Because I believe we can save the people we love,” Lucy replies. “I can tell you how to save the people you love. And the world. But I imagine the former matters a lot more to you right now than the latter.”

A bartender comes and goes, and Flynn takes a sip of his new drink.

“You realize I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” he points out. “Not to mention no reason to trust you.”

“I’m talking about time travel, Garcia.” She reaches into her purse and pulls out a small, leather-bound book. “I’m talking about Rittenhouse.”

Flynn’s throat closes up at the name, ice flooding his veins.

“How do you know about Rittenhouse?”

A pained smile flickers across her mouth.

“Now, that’s a very long story,” Lucy replies. “But the first time…I learned from you.”

“We’ve never met.”

She slides the book across the bar to him.

“Read that. It’ll explain everything.”

Flynn wants to ask more questions, wants to demand clearer answers, wants to find out what insane nonsense she means by “time travel”, but Lucy suddenly hisses and presses a hand to her head, swaying on the barstool.

He reaches out and steadies her, his hand on her shoulder some of the only real contact he’s had in weeks.

“Are you alright?”

Lucy shakes her head. “No. But I will be. It’s only that I can’t stay.”

“What do you—“

“Garcia, please.” She takes his hand and grips it tight. Her eyes glimmer with unshed tears, and Flynn’s breath catches.

“Read the journal,” she finishes. “Please. It’ll explain everything.”

“Lucy…”

She releases his hand and slips off the stool, steadying herself against him when another flash of pain crosses her face immediately after.

“I have to go,” she says quietly. “I’ve stayed too long already.”

“Will I see you again?” Flynn asks, unconsciously picking up the journal and tucking it away in his jacket.

Lucy smiles, but the shine of her eyes dims with sadness.

“Yes. And no.” Her hand comes up to cup his cheek as if she can’t help herself. She sways in as her gaze drops to his mouth for the briefest of moments. But then she seems to remember herself and pulls back.

“You’re the best man I’ve ever known, Garcia Flynn,” she says. “Remember that.”

And then Lucy goes as quickly as she she had come. She takes the light with her when she leaves, the bar returning to its smoky darkness. But unlike before, Flynn has no desire to stay in it.

The journal weighs heavy in his inside jacket pocket, and inside of him, a spark flickers to life.

We can save the people we love.

Does that include him? Does that include her?

Perhaps he shouldn’t trust her. Perhaps it shouldn’t matter. He doesn’t have to read the journal, doesn’t have to listen, doesn’t have to do anything at all.

He reads it anyway.

And years later, back in 1937, Flynn catches her eyes across a field lit up with flames and knows he was right to follow her North Star. She led him right back to her.


	8. VIII.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T. Prompt: “If I love you, what business is it of yours?”

Lucy Preston loves Garcia Flynn. Fact. She knows it like she knows that the earth is round, that her hair is brown, that in her timeline, John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln.

She loves Garcia Flynn. And she doesn’t know what the hell she’s supposed to do about it.

The first time she truly allows herself to acknowledge it, he almost dies. When he finally wakes up again after she hasn’t slept for over twenty-four hours, she squeezes his hand, goes back to her room, and has a mildly hysterical breakdown. Because she can’t, she can’t. Not when everything is falling to pieces all around them, not when they could all be dead at any moment, not when she already can’t afford to lose him as a teammate, as a friend.

She can’t.

For a few days, Lucy sits with it just like that, avoiding Flynn’s room, getting updates on his condition from Denise or Jiya or Rufus, all of whom look at her like they’re biting back additional commentary.

And then, she’s angry. Irrationally, she can acknowledge that, but angry nonetheless. Because how dare he. How dare he make her fall in love with him. What gave him the right to steal into her heart, to make himself indispensable to her, to make her need him?

(How dare he make her love him and then almost die on her when she’s positive she couldn’t survive that.)

Lucy Preston loves Garcia Flynn. Fact.

She can’t ever tell him. Also a fact. Or, at least, a resolution. A personal one. She takes the words from her tongue and locks them away, dusting her hands of them, and hopes desperately to forget.

And then she goes to see him again. And she’s lost.

“I love you,” Flynn breathes against her lips as Lucy kisses him and kisses him and kisses him, trying to be cautious of his current state, but desperate to feel the warmth of his hands, his pulse, his heartbeat, tangible reminders that he’s alive.

She tastes salt and kisses him harder, clawing at his shoulders when he pulls back.

“Lucy.” Flynn cups her cheek, wipes away a tear with his thumb.

“I can’t say it,” she says, hushed as if the bed is a confessional. “I can’t—Garcia, please, don’t ask me to, just—please, just kiss me?”

His free hand curves around her waist, pulling her close.

“It’s okay,” he replies, just as quietly as he presses his forehead to hers. “You don’t have to. I already know.”


	9. IX. The Miracle of Christmas Revised

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T. Prompt: "After reading the details of Flynn’s autopsy, Lucy “there’s always another way” Preston & the team decide to go back and save Garcia “sad puppy, brave & idiotic butthead” Flynn (AND JESSICA FOR PETE’S SAKE) from his fate."

It doesn’t actually hit Lucy at first. She sees the empty Lifeboat, she reads the note Flynn left for her, but it doesn’t quite register. It’s as if she’s left her body somewhat, numb and half-convinced that despite appearances, when they get back to the present, he’ll be right there waiting.

Except, he isn’t. He isn’t and everyone is saying these things, things none of them ever said when he was with them, and Denise thinks she and Wyatt are sharing a room, and it’s—

It’s all wrong. It’s all so wrong. Because it shouldn’t have been Flynn. Flynn, who has always done the hard thing, the necessary thing, the one who was always willing to get his hands dirty for the greater good even when no one else was willing to, even if it meant hating himself for it.

This wasn’t his fault. This wasn’t his mess. It shouldn’t have been him.

Denise hands Lucy a file with a picture, an autopsy report for a John Doe, and then it hits. Pain, grief like a tidal wave, a tsunami—Flynn, her rock, her support, her—

_“I didn’t think I was your type.”_

_“You don’t know anything about my type.”_

Maybe it wasn’t love, not yet, not when her heart is so fragile, when there is so much else for her to deal with. But it was something. Something important. Something that mattered.

Flynn mattered. Flynn _matters_.

This isn’t right.

…but she can fix it.

Lucy’s climbing inside the Lifeboat before she can think of anything else—everyone is asleep, there’s no one to stop her, and how hard can it be anyway? There’s a record in the computer of the places the ship has been—all she has to do is go back to a few minutes before Flynn sent it back to them. It’s worth trying anyway. When Flynn has given her everything, everything, when everything he’s done has been because of her—she can at least try. She owes him that much. She owes him far more.

(There’s so much she never told him. So much she never said—or if she did, it wasn’t where he could hear. She never told him that he was right, that should have listened to him sooner. She never told him that she understood—after Jesse James, after the weeks spent with her mother, after almost killing Emma in Chinatown—she understood why he did things the way he did. She never told him that they were the same. None of their hands are clean.

She should have told him. She will.)

Lucy scrolls through the record of time and date stamps, punching into the autopilot what looks like should be the right coordinates, and then she buckles her seat belt, the door closes, and she’s gone.

Pain slams into her head the second she lands again, the usual nausea and dizziness of time travel magnified tenfold. Even when it fades enough for the black spots to dissipate from her vision, it remains a dull throb at her temples.

But, she shouldn’t be long. When the door opens, sure enough, a copy of the Lifeboat sits several feet away, and Lucy scrambles out of her own ship to get to it.

“Flynn!” She calls. “Flynn!”

He appears at the door, drawn and gaunt, his face a mess of bruises—but, he’s real. Alive. He may look seconds away from passing out, he may be staring as though she’s a hallucination, but he’s alive.

“Lucy?” He croaks.

Her breath catches, tears blur her vision, and she nods.

“Send this back and come with me,” she orders. “I’m not leaving you here. You’re not dying.”

Flynn closes his eyes like it’s painful to look at her.

“I’m not sure I have a choice about that.”

“So, what? You’re giving up?” Another wave of dizziness rocks her, but Lucy pushes through it. “No. No, I don’t accept that.”

“Lucy—”

“You said you wanted me to be happy,” she interrupts. “But you make me happy. Not Wyatt. You. And I can’t do this without you, Flynn. I can’t. So, please, just—just get in the goddamn time machine.”

Flynn opens his mouth, then shuts it. Behind him, the computer glows, half-entered coordinates blinking at both of them. For a moment, Lucy’s stomach twists, thinking he might say no, but he finally turns and finishes entering the numbers, climbing out just before the door closes.

His knees buckle when his feet hit the ground, and Lucy rushes to take some of his weight, to help him make it over to her ship. It’s almost too much—he’s so tall and so heavy, while she is very much not, and panic flutters in her chest that maybe she really can’t do this alone, that this was all for nothing, that he really might—

Flynn’s breathing hard by the time they close the distance and manage to climb into the Lifeboat. There’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead, and when Lucy buckles him in, she can’t help noticing his racing pulse.

“Just a few more minutes,” she says, pushing his hair back. Flynn tips into the touch almost despite himself. That has to be right, doesn’t it? If she can just get him back, the stress of traveling on their own timelines should reverse. Right? Oh god, that has to be right.

“I really didn’t want you to have to watch me die,” Flynn replies, his eyes barely open.

“You’re not dying,” Lucy snaps, programming the computer. “I won’t let you.”

A faint smile twists his mouth as the door closes. The familiar whir of the engines starts up, and then they’re gone, back to their normal time.

“Flynn?” Lucy hits the button to open the door as soon as they come to a stop, scrambling first at her own seat belt, then at his. “Flynn?”

He doesn’t open his eyes, his pulse is far weaker than before when she presses her fingers to his throat, and her eyes blur again. No. No, she didn’t do this just so she could lose him in the present.

“I did love you,” he murmurs.

“Flynn—Garcia—help! Someone help!”

Wyatt, Rufus, and Denise all come running, wide eyes taking in Flynn’s slumped form and Lucy’s tear-stained face. The boys climb in and take Flynn’s weight to get him out, Lucy following after.

“What did you do?” Denise asks, steadying Lucy when yet more dizziness rocks her.

“What I had to,” she replies. The last thing she remembers is the sympathetic look on Denise’s face before everything goes black.

Lucy wakes up to the steady beep of monitors. Across the room, Flynn is attached to one, an IV in his arm. He isn’t awake from what she can tell, but the beeping at least suggests that he is, in fact, still alive. She nearly sobs in relief.

She disconnects her own heart monitor and slips out of her bed, crossing the room and gently climbing into his. There isn’t much space—it’s a small bed and Flynn is a large person—but there’s enough for her to curl up against his side, to pillow her head on his chest, to wrap an arm around his waist.

Safe and protected and loved. That was how the journal said he made her feel. And he does. He does. So, if she can give that back to him, even a little bit, even to his unconscious mind—she will.

It still isn’t love. Not quite yet. But close. Close enough.

And when he wakes up—not if, when—they can go from there. Because he’s alive.

She’s made her choice.


	10. X. Alternate 2x01

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T. Prompt: "Garcy + One saving the other from Rittenhouse in a rescue mission."

Flynn’s cell opens on a Wednesday. It’s been three weeks of hell, over two of them spent in solitary confinement, a windowless room not even large enough for him to fully stretch out length-wise on the floor.

It’s a good thing he’s never been claustrophobic. Although, there’s still the matter of his nightmares—Lorena and Iris appearing before him whether he’s awake or sleeping to ask why he didn’t save them, why he failed. He’s almost grateful for the interruption and the opportunity to escape the cell, even if it’s only to see his least-favorite agent.

“Agent Christopher,” he greets. “I can’t imagine why you’re here. Don’t tell me you lost those Rittenhouse agents you arrested already?”

Denise’s face tightens, and his stomach twists. That was meant as a jab, not something serious. If Rittenhouse really got away after everything—fuck, he never should have trusted this plan. Arrest Rittenhouse? Arrest them? What had he been thinking?

(He knows what he’d been thinking. That he was tired. That he already had more than enough blood on his hands. That it was Lucy’s suggestion and he should be able to trust her. But if it really didn’t work, if they’re back where they started—)

“As much as it pains me to admit,” Denise says, “…we need your help.”

“You had me arrested.”

“You’re a terrorist.”

“And you were removed from command of your operation because Rittenhouse infiltrated a federal agency and would have done god only knows what with that power,” he snaps back. “My methods were at least getting things done, how well were yours working out for you?”

Denise clenches her jaw and looks away. “Well, I’m here now.”

“To let me out just long enough to clean up your mess before throwing me right back here?” Flynn shakes his head. “Thanks, but no thanks, Agent Christopher. I’m not helping you. You can go.”

“Rittenhouse has Lucy,” she says, and it sucks all the air from the room. His chest tightens—he can’t breathe.

“They what?”

“She vanished from her mother’s house the same day Emma Whitmore stole the Mothership and set off a bomb at Mason Industries.” Photos from the house—signs of a struggle, Flynn notices—are placed on the table before him. “Wyatt was injured in the blast, which means I am…extremely regrettably down a soldier at the moment. Especially one that knows anything about Rittenhouse.”

Emma? Flynn swallows hard. No, Emma couldn’t be—Emma wasn’t—he would have known, wouldn’t he? He would have—

He thinks about Anthony, about Emma’s voice in his ear saying he couldn’t trust the older man, stoking his suspicions like his very own Iago. Not that he wouldn’t have killed him for trying to blow up the Mothership, but maybe if he hadn’t spiraled down so far—

“I didn’t know,” Flynn says, his voice distant to his own ears. “I thought she was just a pilot.”

_I told her things…_

“If you’d thought anything else, she would have been dead long before she ever got a chance to steal that ship, I know that much,” Denise replies.

He nods once. “Do you still have the other one?”

“The Lifeboat was heavily damaged when the bomb went off. It’s being repaired, but it could take time.”

“So you have nothing.”

“I have you. Will you help us or not?”

Flynn would love to say no. Why should he help the people who got them to this point in the first place? If they had just listened instead of fighting him the whole way through—

But Rittenhouse has Lucy. And Lucy—whatever else has happened between them, the good and the bad—she saved his life. She gave him a purpose. She gave him something to live for.

_“He’s a terrorist, Lucy. Think about what he’s done.”_

_“Think about what we’ve done.”_

_“I’m sorry,”_ she had said. He hadn’t been willing to accept it at the time, but she still said it. 

No, he can’t leave her to them.

“Yes.”

They find her in 1918, stealing a grenade. Lucy nearly drops it when she sees him.

“Flynn?” She whispers. “You’re—how—what are you—?”

“Looking for you,” Flynn replies. He nods at the grenade. “You want to tell me what you’re planning to do with that?”

“I was going to blow up the Mothership,” she admits. He can see in her eyes what she doesn’t say—that she would be in it at the time. They’ve switched places. In 1954, he was the one on a suicide mission, willing to blow himself up for the greater good. Now…

He knows without her saying that she finally understands. Whatever Rittenhouse has done to her, whatever she’s seen or heard, she knows, she believes in destroying them by any means necessary the way she didn’t before.

It’s not what he wanted. He never wanted her to come around to his side like this.

He feels sick.

“Tell me where it is,” Flynn offers. “I can help you.”

“You would trust me?” Lucy asks. “After everything?”

_“I trusted you with my family. I trusted you with my child.”_

“Yes,” he says. “Do you trust me to get you home?”

Lucy swallows hard and looks between him and the grenade in her hand.

“Yes.”

They don’t blow up the Mothership, but Flynn does get her home. And for a small consolation, he puts a bullet in the soldier Emma was trying to save as they escape. Almost puts a bullet in Emma herself as well. It’s pure luck on her part that he doesn’t.

There will be other chances.

When they all climb out of the Lifeboat, Lucy is immediately smothered in attention—Denise, Jiya, Wyatt—Flynn starts to walk off, only for her to call after him.

“Flynn?” Her face is still drawn, her eyes haunted. She’s harder. Far more like the Lucy he first met.

He doesn’t know how to feel about that.

“Yes?”

Lucy opens her mouth, then closes it as she glances at everyone else. Whatever she wanted to say, clearly it wasn’t for their ears.

“Thank you,” is what she says instead.

It feels like the start of something.


	11. XI: Holiday Prompt 4 + kids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G. Prompt: Garcy + "I did, I really did see mommy kissing Santa Claus And I'm gonna tell my dad"

Parenting is full of challenges. Some of them are normal and expected—potty training, monsters under the bed, regular naptimes, getting kids to eat their vegetables. Normal. Expected.

Lucy is pretty sure there isn’t a chapter on what to do when your five-year-old daughter bursts into tears on Christmas morning and refuses to come out of her room in Dr. Spock.

“Maria? Honey?” She knocks on the door, but gets no response. “Can I come in?”

“No! I hate you!”

Lucy blinks and steps back from the door as the volume of crying only increases. Kids can be dramatic, especially the Preston-Flynn children, but usually “hate” is a word reserved for peas, not people.

But what could possibly cause these kind of hysterics? And on Christmas?

“Garcia?” She calls downstairs. “Can you come up here, please?”

“No luck?” Her husband asks as he appears at the bottom of the stairs. Lucy shakes her head.

“Apparently, she hates me.”

Garcia’s brow furrows as he comes up to her level. “What could have happened between bedtime last night and this morning?”

“I have no idea, but maybe she’ll tell you,” Lucy replies.

Garcia walks over to the door and knocks.

“Maria? It’s Tata, can I come in?”

The sniffles continue from the other side of the door, but after a minute, it swings open and Maria flings herself into her father’s arms.

“Hey, hey, hey, what’s all this?” Garcia soothes, crouching down to her level and stroking her hair. “It’s Christmas—there’s no crying on Christmas.”

Maria sniffs and wraps her arms around his neck, whispering something in his ear before the waterworks start up again. Garcia’s eyes go wide, then he bites his cheek as though he’s trying to stifle a laugh.

What? Lucy mouths.

Garcia presses his lips together and shakes his head, composing himself before he tries to offer a response.

“Sweetheart—” He unhooks his daughter’s arms from his neck so he can pull back enough to look at her face. “First, thank you for looking out for me, that was very sweet. But I think you owe your mother an apology.”

“But, Tata! She was kissing Santa! I saw!” Maria insists with a small stomp of her foot. “And Jenny at school says parents aren’t supposed to kiss other people!”

Lucy covers her mouth and blushes, thinking back to the night before, the way she had teased her husband while they put the presents under the tree until he kissed her quiet.

“You know, I never thought Santa was sexy, but—”

“You’re going to wake the kids.”

“I thought that was the whole point of the outfit? Or was that just because you wanted to see if the beard worked for me?”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Lucy starts, only to be interrupted by another voice from the stairs.

“That wasn’t Santa,” Ethan says, with all the superiority of an older sibling imparting wisdom. “Santa isn’t real. That was just dad in a costume.”

Lucy and Garcia both freeze. Maria goes silent, staring at her brother.

“What?”

He shrugs. “Every year, dad dresses up as Santa and he and mom put presents out on Christmas Eve. I caught them two years ago—”

“Okay!” Lucy interrupts, clapping her hands. “Who wants to open presents? It’s Christmas! Let’s go downstairs.”

It doesn’t work. Maria’s lip quivers as she looks between her parents, betrayal written all over her face. And then, once more, she bursts into tears.

Parenting. It’s full of challenges.


	12. XII. Proposal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G. Prompt: "Flynn proposing (as soft or as garbage as the muse makes it, we all know his propensity for making accidental disasters)"

They win. They go home. Rufus and Jiya get engaged. Wyatt and Jess get divorced, but stay friends, raising their little girl together. And Lucy and Flynn…get a house. There are no rings, no children, no talks about either. They just…live. And love. They live.

And that’s okay. That’s fine. Sure, Lucy gets frustrated sometimes with the women at work who ask about her partner constantly as if they’re searching for her to introduce another term, but she really is okay. She never dreamed of big white weddings and the pitter patter of little feet running around. She wouldn’t mind being married, wouldn’t mind being a mother, but it’s not a necessity. It’s just a tax break and a title.

Flynn was married. Flynn had a child. And everything they did never brought his girls back. Even if Lucy knows he loves her, even if she knows he meant it when he said he wasn’t going to go back even if his family was suddenly alive again, that matters. He wore his wedding ring for over six months into their relationship. He still wears it on a chain around his neck.

The last thing Lucy wants is to try and take that away from him, to make him think she’s trying to be a replacement or that she wants him to forget. Because she doesn’t. She doesn’t want him to forget. She would never ask him for that.

Besides which, wife is…a hell of a title. There are expectations attached to it, ingrained bullshit that Flynn would never expect of her but that she might put on herself anyway. Thanks, Carol.

But sometimes. Sometimes, she does want it. And sometimes she’ll see Flynn with Clara, Wyatt’s daughter, and she’ll want that, too, because god, he was made to be a father. But they don’t talk about it. They talk about everything else, but not that.

It almost comes up once, at Rufus and Jiya’s wedding reception.

“Do you want—” Flynn starts, looking at the happy couple. But then he cuts himself off, clearing his throat.

“Do I want…?”

“Do you want to dance?” He asks, and Lucy knows that wasn’t the question. But she doesn’t press.

“I would love to dance,” she replies.

A few months later, it’s Jiya who brings it up.

“So, did you say no?”

“Did I say no to what?” Lucy asks.

“When Flynn proposed,” Jiya clarifies. “I didn’t think you would, but he’s had the ring for long enough that I assumed you must have.”

Lucy blinks, sure she must have heard incorrectly.

“What ring?”

Jiya presses her lips together and busies herself with tossing their pizza box in the recycling.

“Nothing. Please forget I said anything, Rufus wasn’t supposed to tell me—”

“Jiya, _what ring_?”

Jiya looks back at her, sliding a piece of cake across the counter.

“The one Flynn bought when Rufus got mine,” she admits. “That’s why I assumed—I mean, most people don’t wait a year to propose after getting an engagement ring.”

“He’s never said a word,” Lucy says, shaking her head. “We’ve never even talked about—he bought a ring?”

“As far as I know.”

They change the subject then, but Lucy doesn’t stop thinking about it. Buying a ring isn’t a strange thing when you’ve been in a relationship as long as they have, but then why hasn’t he asked? Why hasn’t he said anything?

Maybe he changed his mind. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t asked. Maybe he doesn’t want—

_Stop_ , she tells herself. _Just stop_.

Except she can’t stop. Because she does want it. If he does, she wouldn’t say no.

“Hey,” Flynn greets, kissing her hello when she walks through the door. “How was girls’ night?”

“Is there a ring?” Lucy asks, the words slipping out before she can stop them.

Flynn freezes. “What?”

“Jiya said—” She bites her lip and takes a step forward, sliding her hands up his chest. “She said there was a ring. And it’s okay if there isn’t, I don’t need one, but if there is—”

“There is,” Flynn interrupts. He takes her hands, squeezing them before stepping back. He leaves the room, returning a few minutes later with a box.

“I kept telling myself I would plan something, find the perfect moment. But I—Lucy, I love you. I never expected that I would ever do this again, but I love you. And I want to marry you. If—if you want.”

“If I want?” Lucy blinks hard against the tears that threaten to fall and shakes her head. “Garcia Flynn, you ridiculous man, of course I—”

She kisses him then, not even bothering to look at the box. “Yes,” she breathes against his mouth. “Yes, of course, yes. I love you—”

“Really?” Flynn asks. “Because we don’t have to. I don’t need this to be happy. If you—”

“Garcia, just kiss me.”

He’s laughing when he does.


	13. XIII.  Stuck With You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T. Prompt: "Lucy and Flynn are in a small space + accidentally turned on"

Lucy Preston hates tight spaces. It’s not a secret. Which is why, by all accounts, she should hate her current predicament without question. The closet is small enough that it would have given her problems had she been alone, but with Flynn inside as well, there’s virtually no space at all.

She should be panicking.

She’s not.

“Can you see anything?” Flynn asks. Even hunched to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling, he still towers over her, although he doesn’t seem to notice as he peeks through the small crack at the hinge of the door to check if the coast is clear. 

It wouldn’t be accurate to say he’s at her side. The closet isn’t big enough for that. Instead, at least half his body is plastered against her back, and the arm he’d used to pull her into the closet to begin with remains wrapped around her waist as though he’s prepared to wrench her out of the way again at the first sign of further danger. The end result of this is that she can hardly think about the size of the space at all when she’s all-but surrounded by his scent, his weight, his warmth–

“Lucy?” 

Lucy clears her throat and shifts to glance through the crack on her side of the door. 

“There’s a guard,” she replies. “Just one, at the far right end of the hall.” 

“Armed?”

She shakes her head. “Not that I can see.”

When Flynn moves to try and get a better look from his end, it pins her even more against the door, and it’s…distracting. 

(It’s not the time, not remotely the time, but he’s so tall and and big and solid against her and her imagination jumps at the opportunity to ply her with images of how this situation could go if both Rittenhouse and clothes were removed from the equation. It isn’t as though she’s never thought about it before, never woken up slick between her thighs with his name on her lips, never noticed the size differential between the two of them and acknowledged how effortless it would be for him to lift her, hold her up against a wall–)

Lucy shivers despite herself, closing her eyes and letting her forehead rest against the door. 

“It’s okay, Lucy,” Flynn says quietly. “We’ll be out of here soon.” 

It’s gentle and soft and she could almost laugh because of course. Of course he thinks she’s struggling with the space. It’s far from an unreasonable assumption. It just so happens to be the incorrect one. 

(But then, it’s not as though they’re in a position where she can correct that assumption. She’s pretty sure saying, I’m not uncomfortable, I’d just really like to climb you like a tree, would go over about as well as opening the door to find all of Rittenhouse waiting for them.)

“I’m–uh–I’m fine, really,” she replies. 

“You don’t have to–” Flynn cuts himself off as something outside catches his attention. “That guard just walked past, headed the opposite direction. On my count, open the door, okay? One–”

His arm tightens around her waist unexpectedly and Lucy can’t help the sound that escapes her–not quite a moan, but certainly not innocent either–and Flynn freezes. 

“I–are you–” He can’t seem to finish a question and Lucy is grateful for the lack of light because she can feel her cheeks burning. 

“Are we getting out of here, or what?” She deflects.

Flynn clears his throat roughly. “Right,” he says. “One–Two–Three–”

They make it safely out of the Rittenhouse compound. They don’t talk about it.


	14. XIV. Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T. Prompt: Garcy + "The morning after they first have sex and they're both so fucking cute about it."

Lucy wakes up slowly, feeling like something is missing, gone long enough to pull her from dreams into reality. Next to her, the sheets are still warm, but unfortunately lacking a rather key occupant.

“Flynn?”

She sits up, pressing the sheet to her chest so it won’t fall. The room may not be freezing, but it’s cool enough that even the air on her bare shoulders raises goosebumps.

She’s been in this situation before, although last time it was in a different room, she was fully-clothed, and also incredibly hungover. Now, she’s perfectly sober, a pleasant ache between her thighs, and she can’t help a flicker of disappointment—she had plans for this morning, dammit. Plans to kiss Flynn awake, to explore the way she hadn’t gotten a chance to the night before, not after he’d taken his sweet and deliciously thorough time with her.

Plans of the making up for lost time and driving him out of his mind variety.

Except…he’s gone.

For half a second, old insecurities threaten at the back of her mind, making her throat tighten. But then, the door opens, and Flynn walks through, shirtless, but in sweats, with two mugs in his hands.

He stops when he sees her, face falling slightly.

“You’re awake.”

“I am.”

“I…was going to wake you up with coffee,” he admits, and Lucy can’t help the warmth that floods through her at the earnest disappointment on his face.

“I could pretend to go back to sleep,” she offers, trying not to laugh. “Or, you could just hand that over because it smells amazing.”

Flynn sets one mug down, keeping the other as he sits down next to her, his lips curving into a playful smile.

“And if I do?”

Lucy hums. “I could maybe be convinced to kiss you good morning,” she replies.

“Only maybe?” Flynn teases.

Lucy lets the sheet fall as she leans in and captures his mouth, kissing him slow and deep. Flynn laughs into the kiss, pulling away enough to set the mug down before drawing her back in.

She bites her lip when the kiss breaks, staying close to him—god, she feels like a giddy teenager, butterflies in her stomach, giggles threatening to bubble up like champagne. She loves this man. She loves him, she loves him, she loves him. And he’s hers. After everything they’ve been through, they’re finally safe and he’s finally hers. It hardly seems real.

“So,” she says, tracing the line of his throat with one finger. “Was I as gentle and responsive as you expected?”

Flynn glances down at the scratches on his chest and smirks.

“Gentle? No. Responsive?” He leans in and kisses her neck—Lucy shivers. “Extremely.”

The coffee is cold by the time they remember it.


	15. XV.  Stress Baking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G. Prompt: Garcia Flynn + stress baking.

Garcia Flynn is a stress baker. It’s an extremely well-kept secret, especially since years spent fighting Rittenhouse didn’t exactly provide many opportunities for it compared to other forms of stress relief, but he is. And once they’ve won, once it’s all over, once they can all go back to a halfway normal life, Flynn occasionally starts baking again. Occasionally. Mainly at one point in particular.

Rufus and Jiya get three cakes left on their doorstep when they’re trying to sort out the plans for their wedding reception. Wyatt gets a bag of cookies hanging from the door handle of his office at Mason Industries. Denise and Michelle get multiple types of bread. And Lucy…

“Sweetheart, you know I love you, but if I bring one more pan of brownies into work, I’m pretty sure Brenda from the registrar’s office is going to hold me personally responsible for ruining her diet and stab me in a dark alley.”

Flynn looks over at his wife—his brilliant, beautiful, pregnant wife—and slips off a pair of oven mitts.

“There’s a new recipe for—”

Lucy kisses him before he can finish the sentence, curling her fingers in the front of his shirt and tugging him back with her.

“I’m fine,” she breathes against his lips. “I’m healthy, the baby is healthy, and if you need something to distract you, I can think of several other things. Leave the recipe for tomorrow?”

“I think I can manage that.”


	16. XVI.  Sharing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T. Prompt: "Want to Share?"

Flynn pours the rest of the pinot noir into a glass, leaving the new bottle of chardonnay in the refrigerator to chill for when Lucy gets home. The kitchen smells of garlic and tomatoes, sauce simmering on the stove while bread warms in the oven. With nothing left to do, Flynn sets a timer, takes the glass, and settles himself on the couch in the living room.

A few minutes later, the door opens, keys clattering in the bowl by the door.

“Garcia?”

“In here,” he calls back.

Lucy kicks off her heels in the doorway before padding across the room. Flynn’s lips quirk as she takes his glass from him.

“You could have your own,” he points out.

She hums and slips into his lap before taking a sip.

“I’d rather share yours,” she replies.

“Dinner is almost ready. Just a few more minutes.”

Lucy sets the glass aside and slides her hands up his chest, leaning in until her mouth is a hair’s breadth from his.

“Whatever shall we do until then?”

Flynn chuckles lowly. “Well, it is our anniversary…”

The bread doesn’t burn. But it’s a near thing.


	17. XVII.  Locked in a Room at Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T. Prompt: garcy + accidentally locked in a cupboard/closet at a christmas party for hours

_Santa baby, slip a sable under the tree…for me…been an awful good girl…_

The strains of Eartha Kitt echo from Connor’s record player down the hall to the coat closet—the entirely unnecessary and far too large coat closet, in her opinion—as Lucy searches for her purse and jacket. It’s not that the party is bad, it’s just that her tenure meeting was cancelled again—good to know time travel didn’t fix that particular problem—she has a towering pile of grading to do, and she’s tired.

And then there’s Flynn. Flynn, who she could have sworn up, down, and sideways had feelings for her. Who she thought might actually make a move once Rittenhouse was gone, but instead, when she asked him to stay, he moved into her spare room for a month before Denise found him a job that sent him halfway across the world.

But he’s here. Tonight. In a soft sweater with the sleeves rolled up. And he looked at her from across the room and smiled like she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen and she can’t—

Months. Months he’s been gone, and Lucy thought at first that maybe she’d been wrong or maybe he needed time, but couldn’t he have said that? She would have understood. She would have given him space, let him go do what he needed to

Instead, he left her a note thanking her for giving him a place to stay while he figured out his next move.

So. Lucy is pretty sure that if she stays she’s either going to kiss him or kill him, and she isn’t ready for either.

God, where is her damn coat?

“Lucy?”

She nearly swears when Flynn steps in, stopping when he sees her looking through the hangers.

“Are you leaving already?” He asks.

“I—” Lucy pushes her hair out of her face and tries not to think about the way her heart skips at seeing him again. “I have a lot of grading to finish.”

“Oh.” He looks away, his hands twisting together. He’s not wearing his wedding ring. Lucy hates that she notices. “I was hoping—I mean, I wanted to say—”

He takes another step and the door suddenly swings shut behind him, a definitive click making both of them stare.

“Did that just—”

Flynn tries the handle. It doesn’t turn. “Locked.”

Banging on the door doesn’t bring anyone running, neither does calling out. And it may be a big closet, but it’s exponentially smaller with Flynn and the five tons of baggage they carry between them in it.

“So…we’re stuck,” Lucy sighs finally.

“Looks like it,” Flynn agrees.

They slide down the wall and sit in silence for a moment, the record changing down the hall to some version of _I’ll Be Home for Christmas_ , until Flynn clears his throat.

“I was going to say that I’m back. For good. Denise found me an apartment and everything.”

“An apartment,” Lucy repeats, her voice level. You still have shirts hanging in my spare room, she wants to say.

“I assumed you would want your space.”

Wow, there’s a lot to unpack there. Lucy takes a slow breath and lets it out before looking over at him.

“You didn’t call.”

“I didn’t know if you would want me to.”

“You didn’t—” Lucy bites off the rest of the sentence and closes her eyes, practically praying that someone, anyone will appear needing a coat so she can get out of this. No one comes.

“Lucy, are you…upset with me?” Flynn sounds genuinely confused and she can’t quite help herself.

“Am I upset with you?” She echoes, looking back at him. “Yes, Flynn. Yes, I am upset with you. For leaving, for not calling, for not saying you would be back, for moving into the damn guest room—”

“What was wrong with the guest room?” He asks. “You asked me to stay—”

“Exactly!” Lucy stands up and Flynn follows, watching her carefully. “I asked you to stay. I asked you to stay with me. _With_ me. Not as a guest, not as a friend, as a—you said so many things and I thought—”

“Lucy…”

“But apparently I was the only idiot who fell in love here—”

Flynn kisses her.

Oh.

Lucy falls into the kiss, sliding her hands up his chest, stretching up on her tiptoes so she can reach him more easily. Two years she’s wanted this, maybe longer, but at first she wasn’t ready, and then she assumed he wasn’t—

“You’re not the only idiot who fell in love,” Flynn says when he pulls back.

“No?”

“No.” He kisses her again, thumb passing gently over her cheekbone. “I thought—I didn’t think you felt the same and I didn’t know how to ask. So I left. I thought maybe I could find some perspective.”

Lucy tips into the touch and curls her fingers into his sweater. “Did you?”

“I thought I did,” Flynn replies. “And then I saw you tonight and realized I’m as in love with you as I ever was.”

“Oh thank God! It’s a bloody Christmas miracle.” The closet door wrenches open, light spilling in from the hall, and Lucy and Flynn jump apart, staring at Connor who looks far too pleased with himself. Behind him, Rufus is shaking his head as he pulls out his wallet. Jiya is trying not to laugh.

“The closet was cheating, Connor,” Rufus says, handing over not cash, but a folded piece of paper with equations scribbled on both sides.

“We never said we couldn’t cheat.”

“It was implied.”

Lucy blushes and glances over at Flynn.

“I, um. Still have grading to do,” she says.

“You’re still leaving then?” Flynn asks.

“Only if you’re coming home with me. To stay.”

Flynn smiles. “I think I can do that.”


	18. XVIII.  Chinatown Speculation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T. Prompt: Dark Lucy 
> 
> Written pre-Chinatown as speculation.

It starts with Wyatt. Wyatt, turning his back on her and confessing that he suspected Jessica long before she stole his gun and kidnapped Jiya for Rittenhouse. Wyatt, throwing Amy in her face with You would have done the same, as though he knows that for a fact, as though it justifies what he’s done. In the background, Lucy hears Rufus, all righteous anger and fear for the woman he loves, but she can’t muster the same burning fury. Instead, hers is cold—a dark, twisted thing that unfurls in her chest and slithers into her veins, freezing her from the inside.

She’s felt the same way once before—when she picked up a gun in 1882 and put down Jesse James as if he were a mad dog. But this is Wyatt. Wyatt. So Lucy tamps down on the feeling, reigns it in, locks it away so she won’t do something she might regret when there are still things to do, plans to make, people to save.

They don’t have time.

(Lucy feels Flynn’s eyes on her as she exhales, the chill receding from her bones, but she doesn’t turn her head to meet them. She doesn’t want to know what he sees in her, is almost afraid to find out.)

Her restraint doesn’t last long. Not once they get to Chinatown. Not once they’re confronted with Nicholas and Emma and Carol, Carol, Carol—

Lucy isn’t sure what triggers her, exactly. Maybe it isn’t just one thing. Maybe the reality of the situation is that she’s been building up to a fall since the moment Homeland Security knocked on her door and sent her to 1937. Maybe, like Benjamin Cahill told her, Rittenhouse is blood and she’s been fighting her true nature from the start.

Whatever the reason—after Rufus gets shot and dragged away, after Wyatt stumbles yet again when Emma puts a gun to Jessica’s head, after Carol tells her that Wyatt could have killed her and didn’t and admits to having ordered Emma to kill Henry Wallace to permanently wipe Amy away forever—Lucy snaps.

When she wrestles the gun away from the woman who used to be her mother, who she now can’t even recognize, all she hears is the rush of blood roaring in her ears. _Jiya, Rufus, Amy, Amy, Amy_ —everything she had locked away before comes flooding back with a vengeance, clawing at her insides as she spirals down, down, down—

“Lucy.” Carol’s eyes are wide as she stares down the barrel of the gun. “Sweetheart…”

_Are you going to kill your own mother?_ It’s Flynn’s voice from months ago echoing in the back of her mind, only where the words were mocking and bitter when he said them, the whispered recollection is like a lover’s caress as ice closes around her heart.

“Lucy—”

The door bangs open with a crash. A gun fires. The world goes black.


	19. XIX. Reprise (post-2x02)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T. Prompt: post-2x02.

“I’m not here to apologize.”

Flynn hadn’t bothered to look up when the cell door opened, but he does at that. Lucy pushes down the guilt that bubbles up when she meets his eyes—no time for that, no time for guilt or regret or apologies when there’s shit to get done—and after a long moment of silence, she catches a glimmer of respect in his face as he gestures to the bench across from him.

(She doesn’t sit. She’s not staying.)

“I wouldn’t expect one anyway,” Flynn replies. “You were proving a point.”

“Only after you baited me into it.” If it comes out a little bitter, well, everything he’d said about her and her mother still stings.

A thin smile quirks the corners of his lips. “And you rose to the occasion beautifully.”

Lucy actively resists the urge to roll her eyes.

“So. Did I pass?” She asks.

“Pass what?”

“Pass your ridiculous little test,” she replies. “I say I’ll do anything, you hit me where it hurts to see how I’ll react, I turn around and do the same thing to show I mean it…was that enough for you to take me seriously or is there something else?”

Flynn considers her for another long moment, his gaze dark and penetrating. But where from someone else it might be unsettling, she has no reason to hide anything from him. Not when there’s nothing in her that isn’t also in him.

He’s not going to judge her for the things she’s done. Or, for the things she’s willing to do.

That’s why she’s there.

“Less than two months ago, you didn’t see any value in my methods,” he says. “What changed?”

Lucy shrugs.

_What did they do to you?_

_Nothing._

“I spent six weeks with Rittenhouse,” she says. “No one ever touched me, they didn’t hurt me, but it was enough. Spending that time with them, hearing what they believed…it was enough to make me realize that they’re committed. And they’re everywhere. There’s no way this ends with any of them in a prison. And there’s no moral high ground here. There’s winning or there’s losing and from what I’ve seen…they can’t be allowed to win. That’s what changed.”

Her voice is hollow, her body numb. But Flynn’s eyes don’t leave hers as long as she’s speaking. He wets his lips when she finishes, letting her statement sink in.

“Okay,” he finally says.

“Okay?”

Flynn tips his head to her. “You know, there were times when I was reading the journal when I wondered if it really was you who wrote it. Because some of the things it said sounded like a different Lucy.”

“But?”

“You sound like that Lucy now.”

Lucy can’t read his expression. It’s almost guilty, as though he regrets the fact that they’ve come to this point, that it’s taken this to get them on the same page. And yet, there’s relief there as well.

(For just a moment, she’s desperately sad that she never got the chance to read the journal herself.)

There’s a lot they could talk about. There’s certainly much more that she could say. But she came to find out if he would work with them, not to have a heart-to-heart. She has an answer.

“Tomorrow morning, you’re going to be moved to our facility,” Lucy says. “That’s all I wanted to tell you.”

If she feels a little like a coward when she turns to leave, Flynn at least doesn’t call her out on it.

For once.


	20. XX. Clever as the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T. Prompt: "Clever as the devil and twice as pretty."
> 
> 2x04 speculation.

“You can’t wear that.”

Lucy regrets the statement as soon as it slips out, not least because of the heat that floods her cheeks when Flynn raises an eyebrow.

“Is there something wrong with it?”

Yes, Lucy thinks as her gaze flicks over the vest, the jacket, the gloves. _It’s distracting._

She bites her lip so she doesn’t say that out loud.

“It’s a little…much, don’t you think?” She deflects.

Flynn smirks.

“Limited options, limited time, Lucy,” he replies. “I’m merely trying to be authentic.”

(Given that he looks less like a Puritan and more like the kind of man they would accuse of trying to seduce young women in the forest at night, she has her doubts about that.)

“The point is to try not to draw attention to ourselves.”

“And how am I doing that?” Flynn asks, his smirk widening. It’s a dangerous combination and Lucy swears internally, irritated that she’d even noticed.

“I—”

“I feel like any minute someone is going to jump out from behind something and yell “I saw Goody Proctor with the Devil!”” Rufus says as he enters the room, stopping in his tracks when he notices the look on Flynn’s face and the blush on hers.

“…everything good here?”

Lucy coughs and drops her gaze, smoothing down her skirts.

“Yep. All set,” she replies. “We should go.”

Rufus glances between the two of them once more, but nods and hauls himself into the Lifeboat. While Flynn’s preoccupied with checking his gun, Lucy gives him one last onceover.

_Clever as the devil and twice as pretty._

Shaking her head at her own foolishness, she follows after Rufus.

* * *

Lucy regrets arguing for Flynn’s inclusion on the mission almost as soon as they land in Salem. Mostly because he fits in with Puritans about as well as she expected. Which is to say not at all.

(If the Puritans have a “sinner” radar, it’s definitely pinged on Flynn. And since he’s done exactly nothing to build any good will, and even pretending that the two of them were married was met with suspicion, well…)

“Did you have to knock that guy out?” Rufus hisses to Flynn through a fake smile as the three of them start down the street in the direction of the Franklin residence, trying to pretend as though they didn’t just leave an unconscious body behind a tree.

“He might have told someone where we were going,” Flynn replies.

It’s not the first argument the two of them have started in the past few hours and a dull throbbing starts behind Lucy’s eyes at the prospect of sitting through yet another one.

“Enough,” she says, cutting off any further discussion. “You two clearly have some things to work out. So here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to continue to the Franklin’s. Alone. And you two are going to talk or whatever you need to do to be able to work together, okay? Okay.” 

“Lucy—”

“Lucy, you can’t—”

Lucy levels both of them with a glare and steps back.

“Work it out.”

She leaves before either of them can say another word.

As it turns out, it’s a terrible plan. And yes, it’s possible she should have thought through going off by herself in a place where strange, headstrong women are likely to be arrested as witches.

“They say your husband is the devil,” Abiah Franklin whispers to her as the two of them are shoved into a room with several other accused women.

Lucy almost laughs.

_No, he just looks like it._

“Isn’t that what they say about all of us?” She replies.

_Now, how to get out of this?_


	21. XXI.  S2 Speculation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T. Prompt: Lucy reacts to finding out the details of Flynn's confinement.

Lucy whirls on Denise the moment the cell door clangs shut behind them.

“This is where he’s been this whole time? This is where you’ve been keeping him?”

A pained look comes over Denise’s face as though this conversation is exactly what she’d been hoping to avoid, but Lucy doesn’t care. When Flynn was arrested, she hadn’t done enough, hadn’t said enough. She’d gotten distracted, had planned to bring it up again later.

_I’m sorry!_

_You’re sorry?_

Well, no time like the present. 

“We can’t put Flynn in a regular prison, Lucy—”

“So you stick him in solitary confinement?” Lucy interrupts, but Denise raises her voice just enough to continue.

“—He’s committed classified crimes against the government. There’s no court that we can take this to, no trial that can be had—”

“And you don’t see anything wrong with that?”

“Lucy…”

Both of them look back at the cell, at the light reflecting off the solid steel wall, and Lucy imagines being inside again. Door closed, not open. No way out of a room barely longer than Flynn himself if he were to lie on the floor.

No contact. No human interaction.

How long could she manage it? How long before it started to feel like the walls were closing in on her? How long before she started imagining things just to escape being left alone with nothing but her own mind?

Flynn’s been there for six weeks.

“He’s dangerous,” Denise says.

“So am I,” Lucy snaps. “So is Wyatt.”

As far as she’s concerned, any one of them could be in a prison for any number of things. It’s only the fact that they’re on the “right side” that makes a difference. And Lucy may be a murderer, but right now she can’t stomach being a hypocrite.

“Flynn’s different.”

“He’s not,” she insists. “And if we’re asking for his help, we owe him. He’s right about that much. Let him go.”

Denise considers Lucy for a long moment, her face impassive. Finally, she sighs.

“On your own head be it.”


	22. XXII.  Post-2x01

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T. Prompt: "We grow accustomed to the dark..."

_I killed a man this morning._

Lucy tells Wyatt while sitting on the edge of a cramped twin bed, physically back in 2018, but mentally still pulling the trigger of a rifle in a 1918 farmhouse. She tells Wyatt and he excuses it, justifies it, says that she had to. It would be easy to leave it at that, at his assumption that it was done to protect her own life. It would be easy to take his offered absolution and pretend to wipe the slate clean, to never speak of it again, to let him go on thinking that she’s above that, that she’s good, that she’s better.

She corrects him because she’s not. Not above it, not better. She killed a man as a means to an end. Not a bad one, not another Jesse James, just an innocent bystander.

He doesn’t get to forgive her for that. She has to live with it.

_I killed a man._

Lucy doesn’t tell Flynn. But then, she doesn’t have to.

She stands in front of him as he sits in a chair in the bunker’s medical bay and he looks at her. Just stares. And she knows he knows.

Was this in the journal? Maybe it’s something else. Maybe she looks different. She certainly feels different.

Or maybe he can see the stain on her soul because it matches the one on his. Maybe kindred spirits just recognize one another.

_We need you_ , Lucy says.

_She_ needs him. She does. Because she doesn’t know how to do this, how to fight Rittenhouse, how to manage the impulse inside her that told her to pull the trigger, to steal a hand grenade, to kill her mother, Emma, herself if it came down to it. The voice in the back of her head that says innocent lives are acceptable collateral damage if necessary.

She’s afraid of it. She’s afraid it might consume her, that one day she’ll look up and her soul will be black as pitch and she won’t care. She’s afraid of losing herself.

But she’s more afraid of losing.

_I killed a man_.

Out of all of them, Flynn’s the one Lucy knows will judge her for that the least. He’s the only one who will understand.

_We need you. I need you._

“Okay.”

“You’ll help us?”

“I’ll help you.”

In the corner, the clock ticks over to a new day.


	23. XXIII.  Episode Tag: 3x05*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: M. Prompt: Smut in the aftermath of 3x05.

_Have you lied to me?_

Lucy turns over in bed, squeezing her eyes shut as if that might allow her to force the dream from her mind.

_Have you lied to me?_

But it isn’t just the memory of the dream keeping her awake. How could it be when the mission left her with plenty of other things to worry about that are far more real. Far more damaging. Far more dangerous.

_You’d tell me if there was anything else about Rittenhouse you knew, wouldn’t you?_

_I’ve never chosen to deliberately keep anything back from you._

Lie. Lie. Lie. She has, of course she has, and the word echoes in her head with each beat of her pulse, a damning whisper. She couldn’t have told him, she can’t tell anyone, not when she hasn’t even had time herself to grapple with the reality that she is related to David Rittenhouse. But there were other ways, other things she could have said, deflections that Flynn may well have accepted that wouldn’t have left her sick with guilt and unable to sleep. He doesn’t lie to her, even when she hasn’t been willing to hear the truth. And yet, she lied to him.

_I have given up everything—_

_I didn’t ask you to do that._

_Yes, you did._

His eyes. Dark and fathomless, intense enough in that moment that just the memory is enough to make her catch her breath. Lucy is terrified, terrified, of the truth they hold, the truth he holds, more unsettled by it than she had been by killing Julius Rosenberg. Because the truth…she isn’t worth that. The trust, the faith, the devotion that would lead a man like Garcia Flynn to walk into hell on a word—she isn’t worth that.

She just proved it.

_Have you lied to me?_

Lucy turns over again and across the room, Jiya sighs.

“What’s wrong?”

_I lied to Flynn._

Lucy bites her lip and sits up.

“Nothing,” she says. “Just can’t get comfortable. I think I might just go read on the couch for a while.”

Another lie, but at least there’s no harm in this one. If Jiya realizes, she at least doesn’t say so, and Lucy leaves the room without another question. She does not, however, go to the couch.

She goes to Flynn.

There’s a twist in her gut as she pauses before knocking on his door, the sting of rejection still all too fresh from the last time. But she needs to do this. It’s the only way to make it right. Because she doesn’t want to hurt him, doesn’t want to lie to him. She may not be worthy of his faith in her, but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t try to be.

She knocks.

The door opens.

“Lucy. What—”

“I lied before,” Lucy says, the words tripping off her tongue, rushing together like she can’t get them out fast enough. Flynn makes sense of them anyway, and his face shutters. It hurts.

“Oh?”

“I have kept things from you,” she continues, fighting through the urge to turn and run, because she has to do this, she has to. The things we do for—Lucy doesn’t let herself finish that thought.

“There are things I can’t tell you, that I haven’t been able to tell anyone, because I don’t know how and I’m scared. I’m scared. It’s not that I don’t trust you, or that I’m using you, or anything else. And I’m sorry, Garcia. That I lied. It was stupid and selfish, but I was just…”

“Scared,” Flynn fills in when Lucy trails off. He looks away, clearly considering that. Finally, after a long moment during which Lucy isn’t sure she breathes, he wets his lips and nods once.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay?”

(She hopes he can’t hear the desperation in her voice, but since Flynn seems to catch everything, it’s probably foolish.)

“Whatever it is, are you going to tell me eventually?” Flynn asks.

The thought of it chills her, closing her throat, but Lucy forces the panic away.

“Yes. Of course.”

“Then…yes. Okay.” His eyes dart away again, but then he steps back from the doorway. “Do you—do you want to come in?”

He sounds as tired as she feels, and maybe that’s why he accepts the apology instead of starting yet another fight. They’ve had enough of them for one day.

Or maybe he, like her, is just tired of being alone.

Lucy steps into the room instead of answering directly. It’s dark inside—he also must have been trying to sleep, seemingly with about as much success as her if he was willing to answer the door. But when he reaches for the light switch, she stops him.

“Wait.”

Guilt subsiding, at least for the moment, other thoughts flood her mind. Other moments she’s been afraid to think too hard about—Chinatown, the hug they shared in Roanoke, the way he protected her—those all rise to the surface. It’s easier, she thinks, in the dark. Secrets feel less dangerous there, less real. Kill a man, or love him, it’s easier to admit in some places than others. And there are things she does want to admit. Not about Rittenhouse, but about her. About them. Maybe it isn’t fair when she still isn’t ready to let him say the things that linger when he looks at her, when she hasn’t told him the whole truth, but god— _God_.

“Did you mean what you said to White?”

_A man who sold his soul to the devil…are you that, then? Her familiar?_

_If you like._

“I said a lot of things to White,” Flynn replies, but he still doesn’t turn on the light.

“At the end.”

It may have been a little flippant, dramatic in the way that he can be, but at least to Lucy’s ears, the sentiment had rung true. Hers. He is hers. And here, in the dark, she can acknowledge she wants him to be. Despite the fear.

“Lucy…”

_If you like_ , and then Flynn had held her as though he could make her part of himself. And she had been safe. Safe and warm and his in that moment.

“Did you?”

“…yes.”

_Okay._

Lucy kisses him before she can talk herself out of it, for once not wanting to think, just wanting to feel. Flynn doesn’t push her away. Instead, he gathers her closer, his hands falling to her waist and lifting so that she can wrap her legs around his waist and kiss him more easily. It’s stupid, it’s so stupid—she’s already fucked up one team relationship by complicating it with sex—but Flynn is hers in a way that Wyatt never was. Garcia Flynn, who gave up everything on her word. Garcia Flynn who would defend her to his last breath. Garcia Flynn who held her in Chinatown instead of going after Emma. Hers. Hers. Hers.

A _re you that, then?_

_If you like._

She certainly feels like a witch now, in the dark with her back pressed against the wall, sparks leaping under her skin and the air itself buzzing as Flynn’s mouth leaves hers to trail down her neck. He pauses over her pulse point, a hint of teeth against her skin half a tease, half a question. He may be hers obviously enough that even a stranger from the sixteenth century can see, but is she his? Does she want to be?

“Yes,” Lucy breathes, tipping her head back to give him better access. The sharp nip that follows is expected, but nonetheless makes her gasp—she’ll have a mark there tomorrow, and can’t bring herself to care. She knew what he was asking.

Curling her fingers into his hair, she pulls him back up to kiss her again, hot and hard and wet. He has been so gentle with her in recent months, a far cry from the early days when he was brash and volatile and she was never fully sure whether she wanted to slap him or fuck him. But that shift has clearly done nothing to eliminate the tension, the sparks, the current that threatens to consume her. It’s more than there now, making her shiver at his touch, making her want, making her need—

She’s not going back to her room tonight.

Lucy loses track of time as they trade kisses against the wall—is it minutes? Hours? She doesn’t think she could get tired of kissing him. But eventually, Flynn steps back, carrying her over to the bed instead and lowering her down.

“What do you want?” She asks as her hands slip under his shirt.

“I—we don’t—” Have to. Flynn’s voice is rough, but she knows him at least well enough to understand what he doesn’t manage to say.

“I know. But what do you want?”

Flynn’s thumb drags along the waistband of her pajama pants, and he wets his lips. The next moment, he’s on his knees and his eyes meet hers again.

_Oh. Well._

Lucy isn’t entirely sure she can breathe, but she nods. “Go on then.”

After Germany, she’d had a dream one night that left her aching and frustrated, a dream where after they argued, she’d ordered him to his knees and he’d gone easy as anything. And his mouth, well—

Dreams don’t compare to the reality. Flynn undoes her with thorough precision, teasing her and winding her up until she can’t take any more, until she falls over the edge with one last sweep of his tongue over her clit and his fingers inside her.

She’s quiet, but it’s still his name on her lips when she comes.

When Lucy gets her breath back, she reaches for his sweats only to hesitate.

“Can I?”

“If you like.”

(And, oh, she would.)

They should talk. They don’t. Talking feels precarious anyway.

They sleep instead.


	24. XXIV.  Post-3x06

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T. Prompt: "I can't do this anymore. Not with you." 
> 
> (Set post-3x06)

“What are we doing?”

It isn’t a surprise when Flynn’s voice breaks the silence, not when he’s been practically vibrating with restless energy ever since they each caught their breath. Lucy turns over in the tiny bed to face him, even as her pulse kicks up a notch.

It isn’t the first time she’s spent the night in Flynn’s bed. It isn’t even the first time she’s kissed him beforehand. But she’s also known he wouldn’t go along with it forever. Once, maybe twice, could be explained away as an accident. Any more than that and it’s a pattern.

_He’s in love with you_. Houdini’s voice echoes in her head as Flynn’s dark eyes catch hers.

(It was easier to pretend before, to explain away Flynn’s soft glances, the worship in his hands. He was imagining someone else, or maybe she was the one imagining things. But to be called out twice to different degrees on successive missions, especially by Houdini of all people—)

_He’s in love with you._

“I don’t know,” Lucy replies, as honestly as she can.

Flynn closes his eyes briefly, then sits up, running a hand over his face.

“Neither do I,” he admits. “But—“

Lucy swallows hard as her blood turns to ice. She can’t lose him. If she learned anything from his distance after D.C, from their arguments in Roanoke, it was that. She needs him.

Maybe she’s been selfish about it, yes. She would take that back if she could. But she can’t—

“I can’t do this anymore,” Flynn says. “Not with you. Not unless you know.”

“Flynn—“ Lucy pulls the sheet higher unconsciously—ridiculous given that her shirt is still on even if his isn’t, but she can’t help the impulse.

“It’s okay,” he replies as he gently moves around her to get up, grabbing his discarded shirt from the floor. “That you don’t. It’s okay. I’ll still be here, you can still come by, nothing has to change—this isn’t an ultimatum.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying—“ Flynn settles into the chair across the room and Lucy doesn’t think she’s ever hated an object of furniture more. “I’m saying I can’t kiss you if it doesn’t mean anything. Because it does. To me.”

Lucy bites her lip.

“It—Garcia—“

_It does to me, too._

But the words won’t come. After everything with Wyatt and Jessica, she can’t just jump into something new. She can’t risk it, regardless of how she feels. 

“It’s okay,” Flynn repeats. “Take as long as you need.”

“I’m sorry,” Lucy says softly. Flynn shakes his head.

“Don’t be.”


	25. XXV. Grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G. Prompt: "How could I get rid of something that felt oddly like grace?"

After the bunker, after Rittenhouse, after…well…the war, really, because that is what it was, Garcia Flynn decides to get away. And Lucy goes with him. 

It’s not planned. He doesn’t ask her to. In fact, part of his reasoning for leaving is that he needs some time and space to get his head on straight, to readjust to living in a world where his wife and child are gone, where he has a brother, newly alive, who he’s never met. A world in which he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he loves Lucy Preston…and equally doesn’t know what to do with that knowledge.

So…it isn’t planned. But Lucy asks if she can come with him, because she too has nothing left and needs to start over. And because Flynn is a fool who would give her anything, he says yes.

They travel all over, always staying in separate rooms, always maintaining respectful boundaries. And they talk about everything. Everything, that is, except for the things they don’t—the way their eyes caught and held over the last dregs of a bottle of wine in Florence, the way Lucy’s cheeks flushed when her heel caught on a cobblestone in Dubrovnik and he caught her around the waist, the way he can feel her eyes on him more often than not, but she turns away whenever he looks back. They don’t talk about what they want, what they could be. Somehow, after years of brutality and loss, love is too fragile to speak of. 

“What’s next?” Lucy asks after two weeks in Zagreb, and Flynn shakes his head.

“I don’t know.”

Paris is the obvious answer. Paris and Gabriel, the new life he bought with his trip to 1969. But inexplicably, that terrifies him more than perhaps it should. 

Lucy hums and swirls the wine in her glass, looking out from their balcony into the sunset. She doesn’t look at him.

“I was thinking…how would you feel about São Paulo?”

Flynn inhales sharply and looks at her, but Lucy keeps her gaze carefully on the horizon. 

He wets his lips as the silence stretches on and finally clears his throat.

“Brazil is lovely this time of year,” he says, keeping his tone as casual as possible. 

“Okay,” Lucy replies. “It’s settled then.”

And with that, she sets her glass down and goes to bed.

They still don’t talk about it. But the air shifts between them. Lucy touches him more—light, casual things that make him ache—and Flynn’s tongue twists around words that won’t come out.

The first night in Brazil, they go out. There’s a band, and couples all around, and it takes nothing at all for Flynn to allow himself to be pulled onto the floor, Lucy’s eyes bright and smile wide. 

“Do you want me to go?” She asks later, as they walk back to their hotel.

Flynn’s stomach drops. “What?”

Lucy shrugs. “It occurs to me that maybe I haven’t been as clear as I could have been. About what I want, how I feel…about you. But you’re a smart man and a good man, so I figured it’s possible that I have been clear and you’ve been lovely and restrained because you didn’t want to hurt me. And I don’t want that. So, if you don’t feel the way I think you do, or if you’d just like to be alone for awhile, you can tell me—”

“I love you.”

Months, hell, years of keeping the words in, and they slip out easy as anything. Lucy stops and sways into him, curling her fingers in the front of his shirt.

“Say it again?”

Flynn curves one hand around the back of her neck, his thumb glancing along the edge of her jaw.

“I love you,” he repeats quietly, and wonders abstractly why he waited so long. 

“Good,” she murmurs. “That’s good.”

And then, she leans up on her toes and kisses him.

“For the record, I love you, too.”


	26. Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “Among the faithless, faithful only he.”

After the end of it all, Flynn goes back to church. It isn’t planned—he’s out walking one day around Lucy’s neighborhood, or rather, their neighborhood since he’s living in her spare room, and when he passes the church, he just...stops. And he goes inside.

It’s the first time he’s been in a church in years, since the trip he took before he went back to Chicago to meet Al Capone. He isn’t entirely sure how to feel about it, but he doesn’t fall down dead the moment he crosses the threshold, so perhaps he and God are more square than he thought.

There’s a sign on the back wall that says confession will be held at 3PM. Flynn crosses himself and slips into a pew, but he doesn’t expect to stay long.

Then again, he never does.

_I’m asking for absolution._

Flynn stares at the cross, at the tabernacle in gold behind the altar. The afternoon light filters through the stained glass and washes the scene in fractals of reds and blues and yellows. And he thinks about war, and Lorena and Iris.

And he thinks about Lucy. Lucy who loves him. Who he loves. Lucy, who is still waiting for him to be ready.

_What if he led you to me?_

“Sir? Are you here for confession?” 

This priest is older than the one Flynn remembers meeting before Chicago, hair neatly combed, but stubble flecked silver and white. 

He should say no. But when he opens his mouth, what comes out instead is, “I’m not sure you would have the time to hear all my sins, Father.”

The priest raises a brow and pulls back the curtain of the empty confessional. 

“Why don’t you try me,” he replies. And Flynn, despite himself, gets up.

“Do you remember how to start?”

Flynn clears his throat roughly and stares down at his hands. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been—” how long? A decade? Longer? “—many, many years since my last confession.”

How long has he been fighting wars? One after another after another, leaving blood on his hands and scars on his mind long before Rittenhouse. And when Rittenhouse came, that was just another war of a different kind. 

It’s hard to believe in a righteous God after you’ve spent half your life in a warzone.

_I’m asking for absolution._

“I can’t,” Flynn says, at the end of it all. He doesn’t know how long he’s spent in the confessional, staring at his hands, at the pattern in the wood of the partition—long enough that his throat is raw and mouth dry. But he can’t finish it.

“Why?”

“Because, I—” He rakes a hand through his hair and stares up at the ceiling. 

“You don’t think you deserve to be forgiven,” the priest fills in. “Many people don’t. Usually, the ones who are the most truly contrite. So perhaps it’s for the best that isn’t your decision, but God’s.”

_I’m asking for absolution._

Flynn rubs at his eyes and clears his throat again. 

“I—ah. I never learned it in English,” he says. “The prayer.”

“The Act of Contrition? That’s fine. I’ll take you at your word you aren’t just reading a grocery list.”

After, Flynn can’t decide whether he feels different. Or whether he’s meant to. 

But he does know there’s one thing he has to do.

“Hey,” Lucy says, smiling at him over her shoulder when he walks through the front door. “Good walk?”

“I—” The words stick in his throat.

Lucy’s smile drops as her brow furrows. “Garcia? Is everything okay?”

It only takes a few steps to close the distance.

When he kisses her, it tastes like peace.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in the process of reposting all my tumblr prompt fills here to ao3 so they're all in one place and easier to find since, among other things, I am notoriously bad at consistently tagging my prompt fills over there. Enjoy!


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